Until I decamped to Goa five years ago, I had always looked at the small coastal state as a stop-gap destination. Then came the COVID-19 pandemic, upending the lines between work and play, and like thousands of others, I took it as a sign to turn susegado into a permanent lifestyle. Soon, at beach shacks and cocktail bars, I was seeing familiar faces—city-bred folks who had a collective epiphany and were now tied together by their exhaustion toward big-city life. In the years that lapsed, more and more floating residents started seeking Goan pincodes, coercing sleepy neighborhoods into assuming a shiny, gentrified personality. Peel its tropical backdrop, and north Goa, like its new residents, reveals a microcosm of city life today.
That seemed to be the mood when I walked into Solene, a new private members’ club housed within a 115-year-old Portuguese house in Moira. The tastefully done-up space, which opens its doors this month, is the latest offering by real estate giants Isprava Group, which started warming cityfolk to the idea of a second home in 2016 and until a few years ago had a monopoly over luxury villas across Goa.
Unlike city clubs, where private meeting rooms and co-working spaces are the most coveted, Solene is built for the socially ambitious who like to unwind, not work. And unlike your grandparents’ old-guard clubs, there are no stuffy house rules here. The dress code at Solene can be shorts and Birkenstock on any given day. Poulomi Das on why Solene is just what Goa needs right now.
